I'll Follow Your Lead
by iolre
Summary: The day Sherlock returns from his fake death is the day Lestrade attempts to kill himself. Sherlock finds him collapsed on the floor, and has to deal with the consequences of his absence.


Written for this prompt: tw: attempted suicide — The day Sherlock returns from his fake death is the day Greg attempts his real one. Sherlock arrives just in time to stop him. H/C ANGST ANGST ANGST and maybe some happiness later? UwU

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Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sherlock's hands tightened into fists on his lap, body framed by the plastic chair that was granted to visitors in the ICU. It wasn't supposed to have gone like this. None of it was supposed to have happened, not like this. _He slipped in through the window, closing it and locking it behind him. There was a crash, and he froze. Had they followed him? Had he missed someone? There was a loud thud, like someone collapsing._

His eyes lifted to Greg's face, examining the lines, the flickers of his face, still heavily sedated as they waited for the activated charcoal to set in, to bind the chemicals lining Greg's stomach. _There couldn't be someone. He had killed them all, destroyed their structure. Moriarty's web had been torn to pieces. Sherlock was safe. He could return. Then life would move on, as it had before. Greg would slot him back, just as easily as he had prior. John would solve cases with him. Everything would be fine._

It had been three hours since Greg had arrived in the ED, another hour since he had arrived in the ICU. Sherlock had refused to leave his side, no matter what was happening. He couldn't leave. It was all his fault. Everything was his fault._ It fell quiet, and he stepped forward, cautious. He knew where he was, knew what boards would creak and betray his presence, and those that wouldn't. Then it saw him. Saw Greg, on the floor. Not moving._

_His phone had been in his hand in moments. He moved swiftly, crouching by Greg's side, feeling for a pulse and finding a pathetic one. Greg was alive. But only barely. He called the emergency number, called Mycroft, had emergency responders on the way. Sherlock rolled Greg onto his back, checking his pulse every so often. His breathing was shallow, and there was far too much time between respirations for Sherlock to be comfortable._

_Then he saw it._

_An innocuous bottle._

_With shaking hands, Sherlock picked it up, read the label. Antidepressants. Refilled just a few days ago, but the bottle nearly empty. He turned to look at Greg, seeing what he saw in a new light, with new information. An overdose. Likely intentional, from the amount taken. Not far from the bottle, not far from Greg's hand, on the floor, was shattered glass. A photo frame._

_His heart beat wildly as he leaned down, picked it up. It was a photo of him, one of the few Sherlock had allowed Greg to take. He was on a case, his eyes narrowed in concentration, mind whirling through the facts, moments from figuring it out. Greg liked it because of how it made Sherlock seem human, reminded him of what they shared. And Greg had held it, had had it near him, when he took the pills._

_It took most of his self control to not drop to his knees. To not let this information overwhelm him. Greg. His Greg, someone who mattered so much to him, had tried to kill himself. What had happened, in the year he had been gone? How much had he missed?_

There was a clattering sound by the door, but Sherlock didn't even turn. His arms were crossed over his chest, eyes on Greg, torn between examining every new facet of him and being unable to touch him due to the pain that had befallen him. He ached, desired to reach out, hold him, touch him, make everything better. But he didn't. He couldn't. What if it had been his fault?

"Sherlock?" John's voice caught in his throat, but Sherlock didn't turn. If anything, he hunched over on himself. He hadn't expected his secret to be outed, so soon. He had intended to visit John, visit Mrs. Hudson, in time, but Greg had been his first priority. Greg had been the one that mattered the most. And look where it had gotten him. "Sherlock, is that - is that you?"

"No," Sherlock replied curtly. He scooted closer to Greg, his eyes flickering to the monitors that were carefully tracking his vital signs.

John moved closer. He had picked up his cane - the clattering noise, he was limping again, noticeable in his movements. "Why?" His voice was broken. Brittle. Defeated. Sherlock inhaled sharply, felt like he had been stabbed. He might as well have been. Nothing was going the way he had planned it to. Like he wanted it to. Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it. What did he say? Where did he start? Mycroft had known the plan, Molly didn't ask questions. He had never had to explain it before.

The beeping increased, and Sherlock's attention was drawn to the monitor, then to the figure on the bed, as Greg's eyelids fluttered open, at first disoriented, then more focused. His gaze swept the room until he saw Sherlock. The effects were immediate - spike in both blood pressure and heart rate, his entire body tensing. Greg didn't speak, but Sherlock could see that he was mouthing 'I'm dead?'. As if Sherlock could confirm that.

"You're not dead," Sherlock murmured. He could barely maintain eye contact. Could barely make it. It felt wrong somehow. Shameful. At the same time, he wanted nothing more. "Neither am I."

"Get out." The words were soft, hoarse, and Sherlock could barely hear them.

"What?" Sherlock blinked dumbly.

"Get out." This time they were louder, Greg working hard to force air through his throat, to form the words he needed to. "Get out!" He thrashed on the bed, dislodging IVs, sending a streak of blood onto the bed, some spattering on Sherlock's face. Monitors were beeping furiously, their alarms summoning nurses and doctors to his side. The same nurses and doctors that were carefully removing John and Sherlock from the room, sending them to the waiting area.

Sherlock sank into the chair, coat surrounding him like a security blanket. He ignored John settling in across from him. Ignored the eyes on him. The silence was suffocating, and Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. He closed his eyes, sinking deep within himself. His mind palace. A comforting place. He could sink into memories, sink into the thought of curling against Greg, the more solid body warming his own as he got his first full night's sleep the night after a case. As he thought of seeing Greg grin after one of Sherlock's more brilliant deductions. The small things. The large things. He missed them all.

"Why, Sherlock?" John's voice, so familiar despite their time apart, sliced through Sherlock's inner mind like a sharp blade and drew him out. Still, he said nothing. What could he say? Suddenly it all seemed to shallow. Seemed like it didn't matter.

"It doesn't matter," Sherlock replied bitterly. Nothing mattered. Greg - was Greg rational, after his ordeal? If he was on antidepressants, what did that mean? Why had he been taking them? Why, then, did he decide - oh. "It's been a year." Sherlock didn't realize he had spoke out loud

"Since you died." Sherlock inhaled, exhaled, rendered mute by John's words. Greg had picked his anniversary to - do what he did. Although he didn't completely understand human behavior, even he could link the dots together. Could see what that meant.

"They were going to kill you," Sherlock said finally. "You. Greg. Mrs. Hudson."

"Who were?" John said patiently, coaxing. Now that Sherlock had unfurled, he pulled out a tissue, wetting it at the drink station in the corner and using it to wipe off the blood on his face. Sherlock pulled back from the touch, unaccustomed to such things.

"Moriarty's network." Sherlock shrugged, the simple up-down of a shoulder. "No longer a threat. It's - I could come back now, since Greg was safe, with them gone." He paused, wondering why John had showed up in the first place.

"Your brother," John clarified, stepping back and throwing the tissue away.

A nurse stepped out, before either man could speak. "Mr. Greg is requesting that Mr. Holmes vacates the premises and does not attempt to contact him again."

It felt like the air had been punched out of him, like someone was squeezing his lungs. He couldn't breathe. He hurt all over. Numbly, he stood, gathering the coat around his fragile body, his last shield, his last protection. It was all he had. "Thank you." He nodded to both John and the nurse, and then turned around and left, ignoring John's shout as he slipped through the doors.

Sherlock wandered around London, not stopping, just moving, searching. For what? He didn't know. It was like he was too restless to settle. When he became aware of his surroundings, he felt his heart clench. Silently he picked the lock to Greg's flat, pushed open the door, and stepped inside, closing it securely behind him. He cleaned up what had fallen over - the shattered glass, the furniture, any sort of disturbance was cleaned up.

He walked into Greg's bedroom, inhaling deeply. It hadn't changed much. Greg hadn't moved from the dingy flat that he had been in when he was with Sherlock. The adrenaline was starting to fade from Sherlock's bones, leaving the deep fatigue that had plagued him for most of the last year, had continued to haunt him when there was nothing he could do to make it better. He glanced around, furtive, before slipping off his coat, hanging it over the chair at Greg's desk, before he slid into Greg's bed, underneath the duvet.

It was strange, being surrounded by Greg's smell. Sherlock's body reacted instinctively, relaxing, as if it remembered how safe the smell was, how Sherlock had felt, with Greg watching over him. Sherlock could name why it was happening, the pathways, the neurotransmitters, but he didn't care. Instead he curled closer to the pillow, pressing his face to it, drawing comfort. He was barely aware when he tipped over the edge to sleep.

Sherlock awoke to the quiet sound of someone clearing their throat. His eyes flew open, and he realized where he was, where he had fallen asleep. There was light flowing in the window. Exactly how long had he been out, unaware of the world? Far too long. His long fingers smoothed out the spot in the pillow that had an imprint of his face, trying to restore it to normality, before he finally lifted his eyes to meet Greg's.

"Your suit is going to wrinkle, if you sleep in it," Greg pointed out.

"Looks like it already did," John muttered, bustling in the door with two mugs of tea. He handed one to Greg, gave a second to Sherlock, who took it reluctantly. "I've got to go. I have - um - places to be." Sherlock rolled his eyes, aware of the transparency of the excuses, aware of the fact John simply didn't want to be around the second time Greg ordered Sherlock out of his life. The only reason Sherlock had taken the tea was because John had shoved it in his face, and he didn't want to appear too rude.

Sherlock heard the faint click of the front door shutting and quietly took a sip of the tea, breathing in the warmth, aware that John still remembered how he liked it. He sat crosslegged on Greg's bed, Greg standing not far away, and he could feel the police man's eyes on him. "I lost everything, because I loved you." Greg's tone was almost conversational, detached. He stepped forward, and Sherlock drew back against the headboard, attempting to shield himself with the mug of tea. Greg settled on the end of the bed. Sherlock didn't look at him. He couldn't look at him.

"Told me I was crazy, trusting you. Letting you on cases. Told them you weren't a fake. No one believed me, not after you jumped. Not with that actor bloke dead on the roof." Greg inhaled, exhaled. "Got demoted. They would've fired me, but Sally stood up for me." He laughed, short and sharp. "Can't imagine what it would have been like if they knew we'd been shagging." His eyes cut into Sherlock's skin, ruthless, like diamonds, piercing his skin. "That's all I was. An easy, commitment-free shag. Obviously didn't matter enough for you to stay. You had to off yourself in the most dramatic way possible."

Sherlock could feel Greg's body shake through the vibration of the bed. He clung tighter to the mug of tea in his hands. He wanted to reach out, to hug Greg, offer him anything he could to make it better. But somehow he knew it would not be wanted. It would only make things worse. "Then John feeds me this story - some bullshit story about how someone was going to kill me if you didn't kill yourself. How am I supposed to trust you, Sherlock?" Greg was angry, bitter. Sherlock couldn't blame him. "How can I tell what you lied about, what you didn't?"

Sherlock quietly drank the last of the tea, savouring its brief warmth, before standing up, facing Greg but not looking at him. His hands went to his wrinkled jacket, undid the buttons, slid it down his arms, allowing it to pool on the floor. The buttons of his shirt was next, but he didn't remove it, not yet. He unbuttoned his trousers, slid the zip down, allowed them to fall down his slim legs. Only then did he allow the shirt to come off, to join the rest on the floor. He stood there, clad in just his pants, his body bared for Greg's inspection.

He knew what he looked like. Had seen himself in the mirror enough to know how horrific it was. How his ribs stood out against his pale chest. How his pelvic bones protruded too much to be healthy. How the new set of scars he had acquired dotted his pale skin. He traced one, four inches long, diagonal, just above the jut of his left hip. "Sebastian Moran. Went down fighting. Last of Moriarty's web in England." His hand went to another, a small graze on his left calf. Each scar, every mark. He gave a name and an explanation. Brought truth to what he had gone through.

Greg had seen him naked enough to know what his body looked like, the few scars he had had prior to his 'death'. He knew what had changed. Finally Sherlock finished, crossed his thin arms over his chest, gathered the strength to lift his gaze from the floor. Greg looked - he looked brittle. Breakable. Broken. Sherlock wanted to gather him up, hold him, kiss him. Tell him it would all be okay. But he couldn't. "I'm sorry," Sherlock said finally. The two words in the English language he had always found the most difficult to put together. But it was worth it. Greg was worth it.

"I can't get back together with you, Sherlock." Greg's words had an awful finality to them. It was like a weight had dropped onto Sherlock's chest, like everything was constricted, like he couldn't breathe. "Not yet." A little bit of the weight lifted, and Greg was watching him, a glimmer of affection underneath the emptiness that seemed to consume him. "Do you have a place to stay?"

Sherlock hesitated, and then slowly shook his head. "Mycroft - was going to sort that out, after I had talked to you."

"The sofa is available, if you want it." Greg nodded in that direction, towards the living room. "Still have the one that's long enough for you."

"Thank you." Sherlock tilted his head, up then down, a gesture of acceptance. Greg sat aside his tea, stood, and walked out the door of the bedroom, back towards the front of the flat. Sherlock paused, remembering he was clad in only his pants, his suit his only alternative clothing. His breath hitched, and he glanced through the door, ensuring that Greg couldn't see him, before opening his draws and pulling out one of Greg's ratty sleeping shirts and a pair of his drawstring pyjama bottoms. He slid both on, having to cinch the drawstring to its maximum limit in order to prevent them from sliding down his hips. Then he walked out of the bedroom.

Greg was in kitchen, mixing various ingredients as a pan heated on the oven. Sherlock sat at the table, uncertain of what to do. What was okay, what wasn't. It was as if all he knew was being re-written, and in a way, it was. He watched Greg prepare a meal - simple fare, pancakes and eggs, something not too difficult for Sherlock's body to digest. He plated them and brought them over, setting one down in front of the taller man. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thank you." Sherlock inclined his head slightly, and Greg sat opposite him, the smallness of the table meaning that their knees knocked together, oddly comfortable. Sherlock closed his eyes as emotions threatened to well up, as a lump formed in his throat as the memories fought to overwhelm him.

"Sherlock?" Greg's eyes were oddly warm, and they sent something pleasurable coursing through Sherlock's veins, lifted just a little bit of what had been weighing him down.

"I'm fine." Sherlock ate the rest of his plate, only then aware of exactly how hungry he had been.

"Are you planning to stay here all day?" Greg's tone was blunt between bites, and Sherlock flinched.

"No," he said quietly. "Mycroft has - I owe him a few favours, and one of them is some regular work." Sherlock finished the last bite of eggs, and pushed the plate away. He took a deep breath. "You?"

Greg paused. "Demoted, Sherlock. Not fired. I work as some sort of paper pusher. Don't really know what I do, but it's boring and keeps me out of the press, just like they like me." His tone turned bitter, and he ate the last few bites of his breakfast with a bit more savagery than Sherlock would have expected. "There's rumours that I might move back to detective work again, with you gone, but since you're alive." A humourless shrug. "Who knows."

Sherlock opened his mouth and then closed it, as his mind skittered through a line of thought and arrived at a conclusion that would have left Greg angry if Sherlock had voiced it out loud. Mycroft. Although Sherlock wasn't prone to displays of affection, for once he would have kissed his brother, allowing Greg to keep a foot in the door at his job. He bet that Greg would be promoted once again, once time allowed. Once Greg allowed. "You're not - working today, are you?" He hated how cautious he sounded. Like he was tiptoeing through a minefield, careful to not get caught.

"I have the day off, yeah." Greg grabbed Sherlock's plate, grabbed his own, took them to the sink. "But I don't - I'm not ready to be around you all the time, Sherlock. Or even a significant amount of time." He scrubbed the plates, giving them a brisk clean. "I need some time to get used to you, being back."

Sherlock gathered himself, gathered his defenses. "I'll just have Mycroft find me a place. I don't want to bother you." It struck him how different he was already. How the past twenty four hours had deeply impacted his sense of self. How he had realized just how much influence he had over another person, and how much he didn't want to lose the person he loved.

"Stay." Greg's voice was soft, hesitant. "I don't…" He fought to gather himself. "Just - stay."

A wave of relief flowed through Sherlock's body. "Yes."

It took six months of carefully constructed structure before the two of them had a routine. Sherlock had found that, unable to access cases, he could tolerate working as an analyst for Mycroft, as long as what he was assigned wasn't boring. He stayed in Greg's flat, only using the workspace Greg allocated for him for his experiments, which were always relevant to his Work. He said goodbye to Greg in the morning. Said hello when he came home. Greg smiled, warm, bright. Would move, sometimes, like it was instinctual to come over, kiss Sherlock on the forehead, like he always had. But he stopped himself.

It wasn't easy, not all of the time. Greg saw a therapist, once a week. Learned to adjust to Sherlock's presence. To what had happened. He no longer took medicine. Sherlock wouldn't allow it in the flat. Sometimes Greg had bad nights, and would stay up all night with Sherlock, unable to sleep. As time wore on, more nights were good nights, where Greg slept through the night. Where he didn't have nightmares that woke him up screaming, and he wandered out of his bedroom to check on Sherlock. To make sure he was real. That he hadn't disappeared. Sherlock never told him of the calendar he kept, tracking Greg's status, how he saw the trends, saw the increases, the decreases, how much time it took before the good outweighed the bad. How proud he was of Greg for overcoming his demons when Sherlock was sometimes too paralyzed to open his eyes. Too afraid of what would be there when he did.

Sometimes John came by, had a drink with Greg, inside or out of the flat. Sherlock hung the edges, never sure what was allowed, what was expected. It made him uncomfortable, for reasons he couldn't explain. He didn't like not having clearly defined boundaries. He preferred it when it was just him and Greg, and he knew which lines he could cross and which ones he couldn't.

Until they started blurring.

One day, about eight months after Sherlock's return, he was sitting on the sofa, working on his laptop, when Greg came home. Greg slid off his jacket, emptied his pockets, strode over to the couch and pressed a nonchalant kiss to Sherlock's curls. Sherlock tensed immediately, his fingers freezing on the keys, back rigid against the softness of the sofa. Greg continued as if nothing had happened, walking into the kitchen and turning on the kettle, making tea. His normal routine.

It wasn't every day, but most days Sherlock would get a kiss on the head when Greg came home. And Greg touched him more. Clasps on the shoulders. Leaning close to Sherlock to check out an experiment. A warm smile. A gentle touch. Sherlock soaked up the affection as much as he was tentative about it, not certain what it meant, afraid to reciprocate. He did not want to reach out and get rebuffed. Didn't want to try and reach out and get scolded.

So he tried little things. Curled closer to Greg on the sofa, when they watched telly. Brought him tea, when he woke up. Kept his experiments to their designated spaces. Even tried to clean his own dishes, as problematic as that was (plates were surprisingly slippery, cups even worse). Each little action drew the bright smiles, the warmth in the eyes, that set Sherlock afire, sent his stomach tumbling into gymnastics, brought the lump to his throat, the wanting that set his body alight. He wanted Greg more than he had wanted anything, anyone. And that was why he was going to wait. Let Greg set the pace.

One night, a year after Sherlock's return, they were sitting on the sofa, watching telly, sitting side by side. Sherlock was pressed up against Greg, the recently re-promoted DI's arm draped over Sherlock's shoulder, casual. Greg reached up, stroked a hand through Sherlock's curls, leaned forward, and gently pressed his lips against Sherlock's. Sherlock inhaled sharply and froze, not moving. It wasn't until Greg pulled back, just a bit. "It's okay," Greg murmured, the puffs of air ghosting against Sherlock's lips. "It's okay."

He leaned in again, kissed Sherlock again, his hand still in Sherlock's hair. Sherlock kissed back, with all he had, sharing his want, his desperation, his need. Everything he had been missing. Everything he had been wanting, he tried to show through this one, single kiss. Their mouths parted, Greg taking the lead, kissing Sherlock until he was dizzy with desire, arousal. They separated, Sherlock breathing hard, his face flush, pupils blown wide. Greg smiled, and Sherlock nearly the brilliance of his smile.

It wasn't brittle. It wasn't broken. It was acceptance and warmth, love and desire, all wrapped up. It was his Greg, the Greg he had loved, the Greg he still loved. Greg shut off the telly, sat next to Sherlock, who wore Greg's pyjamas, like he did every night, even though he had acquired some of his own. He liked it, felt like it was a way to stay close to Greg, no matter where they were. Sherlock shivered. Greg was watching him, intent, hungry. Wanting.

Greg leaned forward and kissed Sherlock again, lips moving lazy and slow. He pulled back, making eye contact, maintaining it. Sherlock felt like he was drowning. "Come to bed with me."

Sherlock closed his eyes and then opened them, overwhelmed. He allowed a smile to curve his lips, kissed Greg again, fierce, wanting, demanding. "Yes," he murmured between kisses, a quiet mantra. "Yes."


End file.
